Writing Retreat

Once upon a time, I said that when the Caffrey Conversation AU exceeded a million words Silbrith and I should plan to meet in person. After we reached that milestone we negotiated when and where to meet, and this month we held a writers' retreat, spending four days in San Francisco.

It's astounding to think how far we've come in three years, from accepting a reader's generous offer to act as editor, to becoming co-authors and friends. After all of the emails and video chats, meeting in person still brought some nerves. What if we drove each other crazy when we spent hours in each other's company? What if we ran out of things to talk about?

Happily, those worries were groundless. Our sanity (what there is of it) remained intact and we had plenty to say. In fact, I was getting over a cold and was more in danger of losing my voice than running out of words. Fortunately Silbrith was gracious enough to let me be lazy, and the cold medicine left me merely lethargic rather than loopy. Our exploration of the city was limited to brief walks each day, but I was able to partake of fresh seafood and sourdough bread and to buy Ghirardelli chocolates as gifts for family, which made me a happy tourist.

And the writing portion of this retreat? That was even more heavenly than the aroma from the Boudin Bakery. Silbrith shared her timeline for an astounding array of stories. We noted points where I can fit in more vignettes. We decided on things like when Peter's birthday falls (and some of my upcoming vignettes may include stories about the birthday celebrations we skipped in the time since he met Neal). We discussed the romantic and family lives of our characters: when some of them will get engaged and married and have kids, and even when some funerals might occur.

One of the most exciting aspects was a game of bunnyball featuring the topic of James Bennett. Readers had asked about our plans for James, and we hadn't yet decided what we wanted to do with him. How would he be introduced in our AU? How closely would his storyline follow canon? Would he be a good guy or a bad guy? What to do with Neal's father had been a mystery to me, and to my delight once we started talking about him we had more and clearer ideas than I'd expected. Now it's a subplot I'm looking forward to.

In addition, I've committed to writing a story unrelated to our AU, set in Terry Pratchett's Discworld. One morning we sat by the fireplace in the hotel's lounge and brainstormed a story about Carrot and Angua and a dragon.

The retreat was a great success in my eyes. We're already discussing where we want to meet next time, and what topics to cover. And of course I'm brimming with more inspiration than time to write.

One of the places where we brainstormed ideas: